Connect With Your Audience By Using Enthusiasm

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Use your enthusiasm to light a spark in your audience…

How many times have you gone to hear a speaker only to be disappointed? What was it that made you disappointed? I’m willing to bet that at least part of the problem was that they were a boring speaker – you didn’t need to have great listening skills to discover that they didn’t grab and hold your attention. Since you never want your audience to think about you in the same way, you’ve got to take steps to make sure that this never happens to you. It turn out that the solution to this speaking problem doesn’t involve any presentation tips and is actually quite simple – get some enthusiasm!

Use Your Leadership Skills To Connect

It turns out that when we are speaking, we’re not inhabiting someone else’s body / life. It’s really us up there. What this means is that we can bring all of other the skills that we have up there with us.

Leadership skills can be among the most important skills that a speaker can draw on during a presentation. The ability to stand tall, look your audience in the eyes, and tell them what you really want them to do can go a long way in helping you to connect with your audience. This is a great way to show the importance of public speaking.

Just about any cell phone out there will allow you to record your voice while you are talking. I can’t tell you the power of being able to sit back and play the role of an audience member listening to your speech. One of the key things that you’ll be able to hear will be your energy level at different points in the speech. If it drops or rises at the wrong point, then go back and practice again!

Reach Out To Those Who Are Not Listening

When I’m working with first time speakers, one of the points that we go over is the difference between a presentation and a report. Unlike a report, when you are delivering a presentation you can sense your audience’s level of interest in what you are saying. If it starts to wane, then you as the speaker need to take action.

There are a number of things that you can do to shake things up. Changing where you are physically at and moving into your audience can grab their attention. You can also start to ask questions of your audience and boost the overall energy of your speech. There’s no way that they cannot pay attention to you now!

What All Of This Means For You

The reason that all of us go to the effort of getting up in front of an audience and go to the effort of delivering a speech is because we want to make an impact on them. We know the benefits of public speaking and we’ll lose them if we come across as being boring because then this is not going to happen.

In order to make sure that we are able to connect with our audience, we need to inject some enthusiasm into our next presentation. This level of energy is infectious. If we can show our audience that we believe in what we are talking about, then what will happen is that we’ll be able to draw them into our speech and get them excited.

Enthusiasm is not something that can be faked. As a speaker you are going to have to take a careful look at what you’ll be talking about and find what part of it captures your attention the most. You can then use this part to generate the level of enthusiasm that you’ll be able to use during your speech in order to make sure that you truly make an impact on your audience!

Note: What we talked about are advanced speaking skills. If you are just starting out I highly recommend joining Toastmasters in order to get the benefits of public speaking. Look for a Toastmasters club to join in your home town by visiting the web site www.Toastmasters.org. Toastmasters is dedicated to helping their members to understand the importance of public speaking by developing listening skills and getting presentation tips. Toastmasters is how I got started speaking and it can help you also!

What We’ll Be Talking About Next Time

There is something almost magical that happens when your audience laughs with you. You know that they’ve been using their listening skills and there is a connection that is formed for that brief moment that allows both of you to share an experience. Forget presentation tips, the more times that you can make that laugh connection happen during a presentation, the deeper your ability to connect with your audience will be. Since this is such a big part of the importance of public speaking, the big question is what can you do to get your audience to laugh more…?